Deal
by drizzlydaze
Summary: Oneshot AU. Because there's too few fics with Barney and his violin. "Barney Stinson makes many deals. But he's never sealed a deal like this before." Marshall/Lily, Barney/Robin


Barney Stinson makes many deals. Business negotiations, bets, women, he's done it all.

But he's never sealed a deal like this before.

It's cold and dark, and chills keep going up his spine as he watches a smile spread across the man's face. "Deal?" the figure asks, holding out his hand.

Barney swallows, feeling the saliva painfully swerve round a lump in his throat. The heavy feeling in his gut that replaced the hurt seems to swell in hope and fear, but a sense of impending doom soon chases the optimism out. He looks straight into those icy blue eyes—you'd expect them to be blood red or a gaping black, but they're sapphires encased in an everlasting frost—and remembers who he's dealing with.

But then he remembers those other things that made him come here in the first place. _You've lost the girl and lost your faith; the only thing that's remotely in your grasp is that dusty dream._

"Deal," he says, and the word crackles into silence from his sandpaper throat.

The man hears it anyway and his grin grows wide. Barney finalizes the deal with a firm handshake, but instead of the cocky smirk that should accompany it, a rictus slant of his mouth is the closest thing he can manage.

Slowly, he feels the deadness spread from the weight in his stomach to his entire torso, feels an emptiness diffuse across his nerves till it reaches his fingertips. Barney waits. Is that all? He must have less of a soul than he expected.

The handshake ends, and Barney looks down to smooth out his suit, a little shakily. He raises his head, only to find that in the few seconds that he broke off his gaze, the man has disappeared into the night, without even a fresh set of footprints on the damp soil to prove his presence.

Not even enough time to thank him. Oh well. Barney gives a little shrug, a lone suit under the moonlight, and pushes open the latticed gate.

The next morning, he feels different. He doesn't quite know how to explain it, but… he feels transparent, almost carefree, as though his internal systems have been replaced by something like glass. The right word is just on the edge of his mind, on the tip of his tongue. Barney Stinson feels… feels…

"Hollow," he says aloud. There's a moment of silence before he adds, "Awesome."

He changes out of his silk suitjamas and into an Armani, straightening his cuffs as he digs out a dusty blue case. He carefully unclasps the dark fasteners and lifts the lacquered instrument to the light of day. It's a good instrument. It's a _very_ good instrument. As a child, his mother would waste no expense on what was his lifelong dream. And it's free of any dirt accumulated over the years; Barney assumes the pleasant surprise is an additional gift from the man in the night. Next, he takes the bow out. The gleaming white hair is loose as he last left it, and the grip is rounded and worn down with many years of practise. He tightens the frog, tautening the horsehair, and proceeds with the familiar routine of rosining the bow, all the while feeling the anticipation build inside him.

He can still feel emotions. No change there. But that does coincide with what the man had said, after all. The effects of the deal would take place over a stretch of ten years, after which… _something_ would happen to Barney. He isn't all that fussed over the details right now. Possibly after his soul is completely gone, the man will stop his heart.

Barney stands now, his back silhouetted by the white light from the window, a tall shadow wielding the violin and bow with the utmost precision. He briefly plucks the strings with his left hand, and it's in tune. Of course; if the man had bothered to dust it off, why not tune it too?

He takes a breath.

He plays.

:::

Barney decides to visit the man one more time before he begins his ascent to fame. He knows when the thought occurs to him, but he's not exactly certain when he takes it into his head to act on it.

People don't normally fancy a second meeting with the Devil.

:::

Stepping out into the street, Barney only just realizes the problem. Where in hell would he find the Devil? Well, not where in hell, because that would be easy enough, but where in New York City by day would he find the Devil?

Somehow, he finds the place on impulse.

It's a pub. Not exactly a cesspit of sin, by Barney's or (surely) the Devil's standards, but it does have alcohol. So he follows his feet down into MacLaren's.

Barney spots the man immediately. It's as if his eyes are drawn to him, as inconspicuous as the Devil is, innocently cleaning out glasses at the bar. His eyes are no longer shocking blue, but a normal, decent black. Ordinary. What name does he go by? Barney wonders. It's not as though he could call himself Lucifer.

His silent question finds a response immediately by a large man who has just vacated his booth to get a drink. "Gin and tonic, Carl."

"Coming right up." The Devil's voice is deep and wrought with familiarity, and it lacks the cold, business-like tone in the graveyard.

Barney walks up to him too. "Hello, again," he greets.

Carl shoots him a shark-like grin, another flash of resemblance to the night before. "Hey, Stinson. Can I get anything for you?" He hands the large man his drink as he says this.

"Johnny Walker, neat." Barney leans against the countertop.

They talk, but when Barney leaves, he can't quite recall the conversation.

:::

He gets famous quick. Of course he does. Loretta says she can't be more proud of him, him the virtuoso, the master violinist. James is swept up in a whirlwind of happiness with him finding Tom as well as the delight of Barney's eminence. And that's it for Barney's relations. He doesn't make any friends; peers, maybe, but no one has pierced his dying emotions so deeply as to be friends. He doesn't have lovers, and oh, how the notion makes him laugh. He has bimbos. Infinitely more reliable, and a thousand times more fun. Happiness is happiness.

He travels a lot. The times he's in New York, he goes to that bar, MacLaren's, to see the Devil. The conversations they have always slip his mind the moment he walks out, but he supposes it wouldn't good if too much information got out about the Devil, which is probably why he's not allowed to remember too much.

There's this one time where he's playing the violin in Japan to wild applause. He feels his chest heaving, feels the ecstasy rise up in his heart, emotion rushing through his veins. It's only when he plays the violin that he experiences such wonders, that he feels so alive and well. It's only with the violin that he feels whole again.

Anyway, he's in Japan and reporters crowd him after his stunning rendition of the Bruch Violin Concerto in G minor. He loves the fame. He chats with them animatedly in Japanese, just one of the many languages he picked up when he was still with Altrucell, before an American reporter comes up to him. She's with World Wide News, which is good because Barney's half-expecting some lame newscaster from that ridiculous Ichi network (or whatever it was called).

"Hey, I know you," Barney says.

"You know me?" Her eyebrows shoot up. "Cool. I mean, yeah, you do… Do you?" she blathers on, clearly nervous with the world-famous virtuoso singling her out. She's probably new to the job, Barney surmises.

"Yeah, I do. You're Robin, aren't you?"

"That's me. Robin Scherbatsky, newscaster for WWN. So I'd like to ask you a few questions…"

He feels a grin spread across his face as he answers the questions perfunctorily, feels a healthy dose of anticipation rise up in his gut. "No," he says, when there's a lull. "I mean… You're Robin _Sparkles_, aren't you?"

In his career, he's been drowning in music of all kinds. Somehow, in those years, he stumbled upon the Canadian pop sensation, Robin Sparkles. (Though admittedly, he'd come across her through some trawls for porn and not music. Er… it wasn't a porn video. Technically.)

Her face pales, then flushes. "Wh—How?"

But in her momentary stupor, the crowd pours around Barney and sweeps her back.

That's the first time he meets Robin Scherbatsky.

:::

Then there's San Francisco. He's been jumping from state to state, playing across the US. After the concert, he walks round the city and stumbles across a strange scene. There's a painting on the sidewalk of an empty street.

The street is empty because of the dead birds and intent hounds.

A woman backs out from a shoddy door, wielding a broom and swinging it vigorously from side to side in an attempt to shoo the dogs away. They snap out of their stupor, tearing their mesmerized glances away from the swirling colours of the painting to scamper down the street from the redhead's rage.

She turns, panting, and sees an amused Barney.

"I… er… I…" She strings along a series of monosyllables, waving her hands as though to conjure a coherent sentence from the wind. But then she simply throws her hands into the air in exasperation, muttering to herself. Barney's always had a set of good ears, so he can just pick up some of her words. "Sick of this all… New York… worst decision of my life…"

"Hey, you okay?" he asks, and introduces himself. "Hi. Barney Stinson."

He doesn't expect her to know him—as famous as he is in classical circles, it isn't often that someone points him out in the streets—and she doesn't disappoint, glancing at him with a crease between her eyebrows. "Lily Aldrin," she responds, and then bursts out with what he assumes is her life story. "And no, I'm not okay! I made the_ worst decision of my life_, and the stupidest mistake I've ever made, and I should have just stayed in New York with my fiancé instead of chickening out and backing out of everything I've ever wanted to go down a dead end road of painting and I miss Ted and Robin… and I miss Marshall!"

He processes this in a split second. "Then go back to New York."

He wonders if she's going to say something like 'It's not that simple'.

"It's not that simple," she says slowly, but speeds up as she goes along. "I mean, I'm the one who ran away. I'm the one who left!"

But it's always just that simple. Perhaps as an outsider, a soulless figure glancing into the warmly lit room of life, surveying from a window allows him to sieve out the obvious solution. "So go back."

She doesn't answer, just wrings her hands and looks at the ground. Maybe wondering why she's talking to a complete stranger.

Barney wonders why he's talking to her too.

He thinks about her predicament a little more, from what he gleaned from her hysterical rambles. "Then you _don't_ still… love—" The word feels odd on his tongue, and he feels as though something has disturbed the dust that settled on his old life. "—your fiancé?"

Lily looks up sharply, and shakes her head with conviction, disbelief at the very concept. "No! That's not it."

She means it, he thinks. "Go back," he advises again. "If you really feel that way, then I'm sure he's probably still waiting."

Him, giving relationship advice. Him, walking up to a total stranger and solving their problems. But something about this Lily Aldrin had compelled him to speak, something drudging him forward from anonymity like some lost thread of time.

The second time he meets Lily Aldrin, she's back in New York.

"Thanks for knocking some sense into me," she says, hurrying up to him when he walks through the door. "…Er, I'm Lily Aldrin, in case you don't remember."

"No, I remember," he assures her. "Crazy Woman In The Alley."

They're in MacLaren's. It's the night Barney finds out that the Devil takes days off too. Being a bartender could be tiring, he supposes.

It's also the second time he meets Robin Scherbatsky.

His trained ears catch a muffled gasp as she tries to shuffle away, unnoticed, but he sees her and turns away from Lily. A smirk spreads across his face. "Why, if it isn't Miss Sparkles."

"Sparkles?" Lily echoes as Robin turns to face him in dread. "Who's Sparkles?"

"Don't you know?" He gives a mock expression of shock. "Robin Sparkl_mmmmph_."

Robin's surprisingly strong as she clamps her hand down on Barney's mouth. "Nothing. He means nothing."

"You two know each other?" Lily asks, surprised.

Barney starts licking Robin's hand. He gets a brief moment of recoil, before her palm slams defiantly back.

"We've met," she replies shortly, sidestepping the fact that he's just, you know, a genius violinist whose talent and skill has totally _rocked_ the classical world. "How do _you_ know him?"

Barney tries to bite her skin, but he can't even get his mouth wide enough to properly clamp his canines down.

"In San Francisco… He was the guy who convinced me to come back."

Barney changes his strategy, and Robin jolts back, immediately letting go of his mouth.

"That's disgusting," she accuses, staring at the affected palm in horror. "That's so disgustingly dirty and wrong."

He straightens his suit and winks.

Then figures he shouldn't have done that, because while screwing bimbos is fine, it's only fine because they don't know he's a world-famous soloist, and Robin's a reporter who could use some dirt on him.

Lily taps him on the shoulder. "Look, that's Marshall!"

"Marshall?" He pauses to place the familiar-sounding name. "Oh, your fiancé."

Introductions begin again, with Barney suddenly realizing Marshall is the man who he glimpsed on his first time to MacLaren's, the man who had alerted him to the Devil's name. Partway through an amusing anecdote of their wedding, another man comes in, and that's how Barney meets Ted. Surprisingly, Ted recognizes him as the acclaimed soloist and goes a bit crazy for a moment. They talk and get to know each other in a booth, which is when Barney finds out that...

Ted is a little bit of a pretentious douche. That's how he knows the name of Barney Stinson.

More importantly, Ted is Robin's boyfriend.

It seems so odd when Barney hears it like that—after nearly forty-five minutes of talking to the guy, it just seems so weird that Robin's his girlfriend. Ted seems very much a mushy romantic, a little pretentious, and though in some ways very much suited to Robin… they don't quite fit.

Robin is Ted's girlfriend.

Robin is kickass and a gun nut. She's not for marriage, despises corn, and doesn't wait for other people to take care of things. She adores scotch and cigars. She's adventurous and dangerous and zips across the world just like Barney.

…She's open to laser tag.

But she's _Canadian_.

(Then he catches himself, and thinks: Why is there a 'but' in front of 'she's Canadian'? Canada always does incur a 'but', but what is this particular 'but' rebutting? What's he trying to deny? That, Barney eventually reasons, she is awesome, _but_ she is Canadian. Nothing more, nothing less.)

(…Why is he over thinking this?)

Barney likes them, the little close-knit group, but he can't help but feel a little like an outsider. Not because he's just met them, but because Lily and Marshall are married, and Robin and Ted are together, so he's pretty much the fifth, sixth and seventh wheel.

He doesn't exactly make it a point to meet them when he's in New York, but he does make it a point to stop by MacLaren's. And when he does, they're always there, and he always winds up sitting with them.

:::

"I see you've picked up some friends."

"I'm wearing a suit; of course I've picked up some friends. More importantly, I don't have a goatee."

"_I_ don't have a goatee."

"Or have lobster-red skin."

"I don't have lobster-red skin."

"Or carry a giant fork around."

"It's a pitchfork. And it's cool."

"…Well, I'm wearing a suit."

:::

Start.

Notes intricately jumping from one interval to another, then the third inversion dropping down into the tonic chord and his fingers loose to alternate between the pizzicato and rough spiccato. Emotion, fulfilment surge through him as his pulse picks up, black notes flashing through his mind as his wrist works furiously to skip his bow across the strings. His frame bends and straightens, body moving to the music, and a bead of sweat edges from his temple. Chords in interesting arrangements and intriguing patterns dictate the cadenza, and finally, a long trill echoes across the cool dark hall.

Stop.

:::

Barney wants to do something crazy so he steals the moving van.

He goes laser tagging with Robin, then they go to MacLaren's to play Robin's mini set of Battleship. Barney cheats best, so he wins.

:::

Ted and Robin break up an hour before Barney leaves for a tour in Asia.

"It was the long distance thing," Robin says. "I'm away so much of the time for work. Plus, I'm not interested in marriage or kids, or really the romantic into-the-sunset future Ted wants. Except the dog. _But_ I just…"

Barney nods. They're in Beijing, and it has been nine hours since the breakup. Robin bumped into him while doing some reporting for WWN and broke the news.

"It was mutual, anyway. Completely clean." She gulps her shot down. "Totally fine."

:::

Something's wrong with Barney. He starts to feel emotions again, proper emotions. It probably isn't the best idea to bring it up to the Devil, but he does.

"Your emotions were only part of the deal. I'd taken away most, but if you're affected enough, you'd feel as you did before. At least about certain things—like the violin," Carl explains, almost mechanically. It's the most technical and detailed conversation they've ever partook in. "Besides, your real loss only really takes effect ten years since the deal. So you've got a little more than five years to go." He gives a shark grin, with dark, dark eyes and sharp white teeth.

"Oh." He feels empty again as he chats with the Devil, but just a little curious as to his fate. "I do like a surprise."

He quickly figures out the object of his emotions—just like how the violin seemed to feed his feelings, that booth in MacLaren's fuels the dying embers of his soul. More specifically, the people in the booth. They're always there; it's comforting, to come back from tours to MacLaren's, not with random bimbo and Carl, but with a group of constants and Carl.

It's the warmth of friendship.

He thinks this almost coldly, because he's heard that's what it is, though quite frankly, it probably isn't in his case. In his case, he's probably echoing some shallow sentiment that he's lost. In his case, the strong friendships probably only raise his emotional level to two-thirds of a regular person or something like that.

Anyway, it's not like he really _knows_ these people. He only sees them the times he's in New York. In fact, the only one he might count as his friend would be the Devil.

And Robin.

Oh, Robin Scherbatsky, Robin _Sparkles_. He loves hanging the threat above her head, the old past of Canadian pop star-ism. He sees her internationally pretty often, since she's overseas a lot for WWN, and he's jumping all over the place. They're probably the ones who are the most left out in the group—Ted, Marshall and Lily have been friends since college. And since ending her relationship with Ted, she's been travelling a lot more, so he's been seeing her a lot more, in airports, in planes, even the occasional concert.

They always go laser tagging after those encounters.

:::

It's August. It's been exactly five years since he's made the deal. He stops going to the bar, and the gang knows he's in town, so his absence is noticed and felt.

They can't know where he is, though—Oh wait. He's famous.

There's a knocking on his door, and the only people he knows who wouldn't call or text him lest they disturb the great musician's practice are the rest of the gang. His bow jerks a little in the midst of a long slurring scale, but he continues to play and ignores them.

"Barney? Barney! We can hear you in there!" It's Ted.

It feels a little nice to be wanted by them. It's different from being wanted by the rest of the adoring world, somehow.

They wouldn't be here if he hadn't gone to the bar that day, he laments, cursing his odd behaviour that last meeting. Behaviour that had been entirely justified, because his freakin' hand passed through the tabletop.

None of them had noticed, too busy laughing at Robin's joke—he'd been laughing too, and slapped his hand down on the table, or so he intended, foiled by his apparently incorporeal form.

Like he was disappearing.

It frightens him, and nothing's frightened him in the past five years. For the first time, he begins to feel worried the consequences that would surely be felt in the tenth year. He can't think why the emotion has suddenly struck him so hard—a result of being at the midpoint of the effects of the deal? A delayed reaction? Or have his emotions been unlocked more than he thought?

"Move aside, Ted. I'll shoot the door down!"

It's Robin's voice.

He sighs, frustrated, carefully setting his violin aside. "Chill, dudes, I'm coming."

He opens the door.

He tries to open the door.

His pulse stutters for a moment as he sets his hand down, carefully avoiding glancing down at it, and he forces the sharp edge of feeling down.

He opens the door.

His voice is a little shaky as he greets them. "Hey guys. What's up?"

"Well, you've never not dropped by when you were in town. And that other night, you acted really weird," Ted accuses. "Acted weird as in stabbed yourself with a fork."

Did he mention he tried to test his disembodied hand by stabbing it with a fork?

(He really regretted it afterwards, because playing the violin is really hard with a huge bloody wound cutting deep into one's palm. But then, Barney also discovered that wounds disappear when his hand makes the random transition to ghostly and back, so he was able to start practising again two days later, which was, of course, the next time his left hand went all ghostly and back.)

"Yeah, well. Right. So?"

Lily streams in with Marshall, and Robin follows behind, begrudgingly pocketing her gun. "_So_? Your hand—" Robin says incredulously, grabbing Barney's would-be injured hand. "Where's the wound?"

He shrugs. "I heal fast."

"C'mon Barney," Lily interjects. "It was like Niagara Falls! –Er, not in the traditional tears sense, but you know what I mean."

"I heal fast," he repeats and yanks his hand from Robin. He turns away from them and experimentally leans his hand on the couch, surreptitiously so they don't notice, and it sinks slowly through. Damn it. It's the worst possible time, with his friends around. "Now, if you don't mind, I have to get back to practice," he says without turning around. "Some of us are master violinists, you know." He could always hold his violin, even when his body chose to flip the phantom-mode switch.

They don't move.

He stays there, with his back to them, hoping they don't glimpse his shaking frame as he clenches and unclenches his fist.

He rests his hand on the couch, and this time, it stays.

Letting out a quiet, shuddering breath, Barney turns and cocks his head at them. "Well? What are you waiting for? The door's right over there."

"Not going until you tell us what's wrong," says Lily.

Barney sighs. "Look, guys, I know it's super exciting to hang out with someone as famous and as awesome as me, but I've got work to do." They give him a look. "Alright, if you really want me that badly—and I suppose it can't be helped. I mean, I'm Barney Stinson—then I'll come to the bar now. Geez, you dudes can't even wait a few hours."

That's how he dodges the bullet.

:::

"Nice little surprise you got me." Barney flexes his fingers and passes them through a few spokes in the fence.

The man smirks, his electric blue eyes brimming with hell. Barney bumped into him on the sidewalk outside the cemetery, the first time since the deal that they've seen each other outside of the bar. "Just wait till your ten years are up."

:::

There are no colours in his mind. When he closes his eyes, the black is the only thing that flashes past. The sun doesn't make it through his lids, even in the burning light.

The only thing in his mind is music.

Lilting tunes and heavy notes, syncopated beats and straight rhythms. Haydn, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Vivaldi, Bach, Gershwin, Rachmaninoff, Handel; so many composers, so many sonatas and concertos and etudes—so much music. It's sound, not sight, that dominates his life. The lush grip of the violin is the only heaven he knows; he knows hell well enough already.

Music is the only soul he has.

And before, music was the only thing he truly possessed.

But friends seep into his landscape of sound, and they seep in through sight. They seep in colours, bright colours in the dark of night. How he got to know them so well, while still giving his performances all over the world, he can only attribute to the fact that almost every waking moment he spends in New York, when not practising, is with them.

His fingers work furiously, his left hand confidently pinching down onto the strings, his right fingers plucking near the fingerboard.

He sees the strings vibrate and pulse, he sees the bright lacquer of the violin, he sees the black forest of a fingerboard—and he sees colours dancing in his eyes, bright blue and reddish purple and sunset orange and stunning green.

Music fills his ears.

Colour fills his sight.

:::

He's careful around them, always being sure to check his corporeal form regularly. But he's underestimated them, it seems. He underestimated the friendship.

Another three years pass when Ted calls him out. Lily backs him up, and since Marshall and her are practically one being, the lawyer concurs. Robin's away on some report in England.

They question him, they drill him, and he can't answer. He looks to the bar for help, but the Devil isn't there and he settles for alcohol to get him through this. Barney tries to evade their demands and dodge their evidence, but even he can't slither out of it.

In the end, he gets up and says, oh-so-coherently, "You—No way I—I mean, ridiculous!—Don't mess with me—Er—Idiots—I'm too awesome for that, and…" He splutters off with 'er's and 'um's before making a final dash for the door.

He runs clean through it.

At once, he's gripped with panic. His feet pound on the pavement as he runs aimlessly down the street. His entire body. His entire body went ghostly on him—not just his usual offender, that sneaky left hand, but his whole damn body. He does the usual test, picking a pen from the inside of his jacket; the moment he pulls it from the pocket, the moment it ceases contact with the expensive material, it falls onto the pavement with a resounding click that seems to echo over the cacophony of New York. He keeps running, doesn't stoop to retrieve it, just remembers how many times he's dropped the pen in the bar over the last few weeks.

He sprints through a lamppost. No one notices.

He catches himself thinking, this is actually kinda cool.

Then he thinks: This is end. I can't hang out with them anymore. It's too dangerous. What if I slip through the booth or sink my elbows into the table? What if my (carefully-avoiding-using-the-possibly-incorporeal-left-handed) high-fives become phantom high-fives, which are both more and less awesome than they sound?

After a while, he manages to hail a cab and get back into his place without passing through anything, including a reassuring fall over a newsstand.

Barney's in his apartment, about to pack his schedule with more tours, to avoid New York, but… Then he thinks: What if I fall from the bottom of some plane, rushing through the clouds and birds and die with the sun in my eyes and red behind my lids? He cancels the tours, quickly and savagely, pleading with his agent in a nervous breakdown that's only partially acted. His agent hastily reassures him, that he'll put the tours on hold, and that he'll swing by later. After Barney has hung up, the breakdown is a hundred percent real and happening. Not because of his ghostly form, but…

Well, two reasons. And this time, Barney can promise that the two reasons do not start with a 'b', have five letters and rhyme with 'oobs'.

He'll never be able to see his friends again, talk to them, and _friends_ isn't even something he'd thought he'd miss, but he already does. He misses dropping dark hints to the oblivious group, misses Ted, Lily, Marshall, misses Robin, who hadn't even seen him flee the bar.

Barney misses his tours. He misses his music. He misses his performances. Only concerts in New York, he decides, and when that gets too dangerous, just recordings. His music career will sink and flicker, then die, and then he'll live on in CDs.

As his breathing grows erratic, Barney closes his eyes to see only black. His pulse makes a wild dash, music growing faint, applause empty and then gone. He reaches for his violin blindly, desperately, and plays through the night.

:::

They come up to his doorstep. He never answers.

They call him. He never picks up.

The calls are the hardest part. He can pick up the phone, after all, and even if it falls to the ground, he can talk and listen on speaker without touching it. But if he did that, it would only invite more questions, and more longing. So he doesn't.

He only answers to his agent, whom he only met in person once after that frantic call to cancel all his concerts, then bade to only call him.

He lives and breathes music. Performance is dead; he doesn't do any more concerts, not even within New York, because he might pass through the crowds, or the gang would track him down. He makes many deals with recording companies, and follows through, enough to keep him and his agent happy enough.

Is this how he'll live through the last three years of the deal?

And then what? His existence will be erased? He'll become truly insubstantial, even to his violin, a ghost, unseen and unfelt, among the living? The possible consequences of the deal dog his thoughts.

A year goes by.

He doesn't notice. It's a year mixed with so many tangles and complications, yet utterly drab and deprived. Those twelve months mix into themselves, blurring into a single line that time sinks into, undefined.

Barney gets careless in that time. After a meeting with his agent concerning another three recordings, he asks the man to let himself out. He would usually accompany his agent to the door, say goodbye, and lock it immediately after—now, he gets careless, and he gets unlucky.

Someone's been waiting, and that someone comes in.

Barney is in his suit room now, digging up some old scores, when he suddenly remembers to bolt the door. It's like one of those movies—the moment he gets up and turns to the door, she reaches the threshold to the room.

They stare down each other, nose to nose, the sheet music still in Barney's hand (_he's still there, still real_).

The months of black and isolation suddenly end, even if for a moment, with green.

"_Robin_," he breathes, throat dry. He swallows some saliva down, and tries again. "Robin. What up?"

Scherbatsky just gives him a look. "What do you think, Barney? You haven't turned up at the bar for months. You haven't gone overseas for months. Hell, you haven't even stepped out of this apartment for months!"

"Oh, you know. I'm a musician, crazy genius and all." (_Sheet music still in hand. Still corporeal._)

"We miss you."

Those are the words that stop him from firing out another automated response. They're the words that almost make him blurt out _I did too_, but he forces it down and remains stonily silent.

"Didn't you want to tell them about Robin Sparkles?"

He never did get around to it. He walks past her, and she follows him out of the suit room and into the bright living room.

"Go."

"Only if you come with me." Her voice is determined, cool even.

"Go."

To his surprise, she obeys.

"I'll be back."

The door slams and the music falls to the ground.

:::

All of Robin's efforts to come back are foiled by him. Little does Barney know the danger is only just approaching.

It happens a full year after he abandoned McLaren's. Robin is sneaky, deadly, and cruel. Although he has to admit it's pretty funny. But too cruel.

It appears in flyers stuck to his windows (he's on the twelfth floor, for god's sake. It must be that window cleaner conspiracy he's heard so much about), the daily newspaper, all over the web, even in Canadian Sex Acts dot org, and projected on his gigantic wall of a TV.

**ROBIN SPARKLES RETURNS**

Thanks a lot, Scherbatsky.

He thinks maybe he could watch it on TV, but Robin's made sure no TV station comes within a mile of the performance. Then Youtube, he reasons, can solve my problem. But no cameras in the stadium.

Stadium. Since when has Robin Sparkles been so popular that she could get a stadium?

A passing thought that it might be a farce is briefly entertained, but discarded after he calls his agent to check. Then, against his better judgement, he calls Robin.

Ring. Ring. Ring.

Maybe the phone will fall through his hand. Maybe she won't pick up. He feels the phone slowly sink into his palm.

"Barney?"

And then the phone suddenly feels firm in his grip.

His voice is less steady, but he musters up his bravado. Time to put on a show. "Sparkles, you minx! This is your way of luring me out?"

Robin seems delighted at the life in his voice. He can sense the relief in her tone. "Barney." There's a pause. "So, you coming or what?"

"Coming? Of course." _…Why did I say that?_ "…Not," he hastily amends.

"Hm, you won't be, would you? Not even if I'm doing a duet with… my _robot_?"

A sharp gasp. "The _robot_?"

"_And_ hot Jessica Glitter."

Robin can hear Barney struggling to resist on the other end of the line as she baits him, grinning. "You're making this very _hard_ for me, Robin," he mutters, stretching out the 'hard' to make sure she gets the innuendo, but also to mask that torn up feeling inside.

She laughs at Barney finally being Barney with the first (albeit obvious) double entendre since he'd left. "And the verdict?"

Damn it, Scherbatsky, can't you just leave me alone? He silently curses. "I'm hanging up," he informs her abruptly, straining the warmth and regret out of his voice.

"Barney—"

Click.

:::

He decides, just this once. I'll break my rule just this once. I'll try not to join the crowd, or touch anything, and maybe I can be happy for a moment longer. Maybe I can see them again. Just this once.

One last time.

_Everybody, come and play! Throw every last care away! Let's go to the mall—today!_

The crackly sound of an old recording pipes down from the speakers, showering the surprising amount of audience with Canada. This comeback, Barney thinks, should be in a mall, not a stadium. But Robin's probably sick of them, so no dice. He patiently trails at the back of the glob of people flowing into the stadium, careful to minimize brushing against any one of them. But other than his… disability, this concert's gonna be _awesome_!

Concert. Huh. It's… been a long time.

"Barney! We knew you'd come!" A dark-haired man bobs into view—Ted, with Lily and Marshall coming in from the background.

How should he react? Not the usual high-fives, and he would have to relearn to concept of personal space. "Just this once," Barney responds.

The trio look as though they're restraining asking him what the hell was up with his absence from both the bar and, less importantly, the world in general. Holed up in his apartment, they no doubt (and correctly) thought. But they don't, and Barney's glad.

"This is _awesome_!" he exclaims, basking in the people and noise and his friends. "And when Robin Sparkles gets on, it's jacked up to legen—wait for it—"

He doesn't even make it to 'dary', because when Robin tramps onstage, his mouth just hangs open. They grin in amusement at his dumbfounded expression, pleased that he's back and so full of life, and for a moment, for one sparkling stretch of time, everything is perfect.

There's no way to describe the performance, only that Robin embraces her Canadian by aboot a hundred and sixty percent more than usual, and Jessica Glitter joins her in the Beaver song, with the robot in all the acts. It's a fifteen-minute performance in total, with Robin also singing some old songs that never made the cut to fill up the time, and Barney learns Robin managed to get the gig as a farewell to the small stadium; it would be demolished in a few days time.

"And lastly," she announces. "I'll sing a ballad."

_Sandcastles in the sand…_

It's like the time Barney met Lily, then a complete stranger, and advised her to go back to Marshall—an odd feeling of displaced time and unnatural urges.

When everything's finished, Barney realizes that he's stayed corporeal throughout the entire performance. They run to the cramped backstage, against the tide of people (mostly workers from the stadium, and Canadians) streaming out. Jessica Glitter's already left with the robot.

"That was _awesome_," Barney enthuses. "The most awesome thing since… ever! That was even more hilarious than Ted's red cowboy boots or Marshall forgetting his pants!"

"Glad my total and utter embarrassment went to a good cause."

Ted speaks. "Okay, firstly, I was pulling those off. Secondly, so _that's_ why you were scared of malls!"

There's a lot more banter as Robin glares and blushes, removing her makeup and dated shoes. Marshall wonders if there's a copyright to Let's Go To The Mall, and Ted keeps insisting he had been pulling off the ghastly boots, while Lily keeps shooting him weird glances. I'm laughing, he thinks, a little too consciously but sincerely nonetheless. Setting down her curled wig, Robin asks the question that's in all their minds. "So are you staying?"

Yes. Yes, I am, Barney wants to say, _wishes_ he could say, but he can't and he doesn't. But he can't bring himself to say no either, and they watch him in silence as he feels the remnants of his broken soul that had returned with their company slowly recede. Getting invested in friends—not the brightest idea, genius, when you have a ten-year expiration date. Yes. Say yes. Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes— "No."

It would be an awkward silence, with Ted and Marshall with those betrayed looks, and Lily scrutinizing him again, but Robin, even though the very topic is clearly taboo, says, "Why not?"

"Why not?" he repeats stupidly. A million reasons in his head, flashing through his mind and none of them seem to fit in this bright world of friends and reality, because his whole life has him living a damn dream he bought from a deal. "What are the chances I'll actually answer that?" He grips his pen in his hand, the pen he uses to test his realness.

And because he can't stand being near them anymore, can't stand the feeling of his soul not just drifting away but being torn apart, can't stand the happiness that's filling his hollow self, he turns and walks away.

The pen falls onto the ground.

:::

The ninth year is marked by his departure from Robin Sparkles concert. Then three months of avoiding their calls and visits, and another three months of cutting off James and Loretta (at this point, he briefly wonders who his dad is), and he quickly ceases contact with his agent. His company and time is the violin.

He never thought he'd be lonely with music.

Half a year till D-Day. Till the Devil comes and officially gets his end of the deal. He's rarely _real_ anymore, almost always a ghost passing through walls and doors. Can't even watch TV. (_Can't even turn it on and watch Robin._) Well, at least he still has the violin. Then again, sheet music's as evasive to him as moonlight, but he's already got the pieces memorized. Another three months and Barney's positive he'll never touch another thing again.

A month later, with two more to go, he has to walk on the carpet like he's treading through mud. If he stays too long in one place, he'll start sinking. It's not much of a problem, except when he's sleeping, but he soon learns to set his phone alarm to ring periodically every three hours or so. Pity he's not really a toss-and-turn guy.

He feels like he should call Carl, now that the due date is coming, but he can't anyway.

The gang's calls are lessening, and visits to his actual apartment are sparse.

When there's only a month left to go, he begins to feels really scared about what's going to happen to him, and he clings to his violin like a lifeline. He now sets his phone alarm to ring every hour to haul himself back to the surface of the bed.

Five days left, and though he can still touch the violin, his grip has gotten slushy and it's hard to play. So he stops, before his playing starts being a little too sloppy, and passing the time by walking through random objects. He spends a whole afternoon standing _in_ the front door.

The day arrives with darkness.

:::

It's midnight when he wakes up on the tenth of October. He struggles out of bed in the dark, and sees black where there should be a thin line of moonlight. It's the day of reckoning, the day he's been dreading, the day that'll end whatever existence he's been living. But it hasn't exactly been ten years; no, he had seen the Devil in the graveyard at around eleven at night. So he had another twenty-three hours to go.

What should he do? Perhaps take an early morning trip round New York? Or maybe a visit to the old graveyard he hasn't stopped by in a while. Instead, he sleeps for another three hours.

When he wakes up again, he makes the decision to visit the graveyard. Maybe the Devil would be there and Barney would be able to talk to him. No MacLaren's, of course, because they might be drinking late. So he takes to the streets, breathing in the frigid air and being careful not to step through anything.

He reaches his destination in under ten minutes, and just stands there, staring into the jagged stones popping out of the earth, skeleton trees poking the clouds with their bare branches. Maybe he should go in. But there's still people up and about in the city that never sleeps, so there's a chance they'd notice a man passing through the gate; not a very big chance, but since he's kept it clean for nine-and-a-lot years, he'll want to keep a ten year record.

"Barney?"

Who? Who else but her?

Luckily, she doesn't appear behind him or just a few feet away—she's squinting down the street at him, and there's a good distance between them. He hears her heels clicking faster and faster as she advances to a jog, then a run, but his own feet are already beating round a corner and through a wall into an alley where she can't possibly see nor follow him.

Damn it.

He assumed no one he knew would be anywhere near there, but Robin's a foreign correspondent. She has jet lag five days of the week, and it's common knowledge that she works it off by roaming the streets at the crack of dawn with her dogs.

Barney stays in his apartment after that.

_Tick. Tick. Tick._

It's noon.

_Tick. Tick. Tick._

Six in the evening.

_Tick. Tick. Tick._

Ten at night.

_Tick. Tick. Tick._

Ten more minutes.

_Tick. Tick—_

There's a firm knock on his door. It must be the Devil, he thinks, come a little early. "Come in," he calls. It's not like he can unlock the door.

The doorknob rattles, and there's an exasperated sigh, and then something weird happens. There are two grunts from behind the door, and it bursts from its hinges.

Then Barney remembers the afternoon he spent standing in the door, and how weakened the frame looked after that, and curses.

It's like a police scene, with Robin and Marshall stumbling in from the door, Lily following and Ted behind like the chief. Barney notes it's Robin that breaks down the door, not Ted, and isn't exactly surprised (well, except at Ted's lack of chivalry, but then again Robin always gets her way).

But damn. Damn. Damn. Damn. "Damn!"

They advance upon him.

"You just broke down my door!"

They stop awkwardly. "For all the security you put here, that door really wasn't that hard to break." Ted stomps on it to prove Marshall's point, lifts his foot and reveals a large crack down the middle.

Barney guesses that planting his phantom form in the door for six good hours had weakened it more than he thought. "You broke down my door!" he repeats.

"Dude, you've been AWOL not only from us, but from the entire world. From your family, your work, everything! We even called the police to report you missing, except that they figured out pretty quick you were just holing up here and it wasn't their fault you were a hermit. Which is a totally un-awesome job, by the way," Robin says.

"A hermit isn't an occupation," Ted supplies. "Technically, he's still a violinist."

Lily's eyes land on the slightly dusty violin on the couch. "Not even that."

The words pierce him to the core. "Whatever, you guys gotta go." He backs away, careful not to pass through anything. "I've got a highly dangerous secret ninja international business meeting going on, but feel free to come by tomorrow."

_Tick. Tick. Tick. _

Ten fifty-five.

"Barney, no more games. We're not going to avoid the damn topic any longer, and this is not going to end with you mysteriously disappearing into god knows where." _Wanna bet?_ "Because we're in your apartment now, and there's nowhere for you to run.

It's not where he wants to run. It's where he'll been taken.

It's who will take him.

"What have we here?" Business-like. Familiar. The Devil. Not Carl with coal eyes, the Devil with deep blue and ice. He steps from Barney's suit room.

"Carl?" Ted exclaims incredulously.

"You're a ninja?" is Marshall's response.

No shit.

_Tick. Tick. Tick. _

Ten fifty-six.

"Hey Ted," Barney observes desperately. "I can't believe you're still not wearing a suit! Get a suit on right now! From your apartment! And not from my convenient yet overlooked suit room because… those are tailored for me! I'm taller than you!"

Just say your goodbyes. Take the chance. You're leaving, you're gone, what does it matter anymore? _Because they're my friends._ And that statement is so potent and ineffable that Barney doesn't need or can't find the words to explain it to himself.

To Carl, he says, "Still got a few minutes left."

_Tick. Tick. Tick. _

Ten fifty-seven.

"Three minutes, to be exact."

"Isn't it against some kind of rule for them to be here?"

"None whatsoever. Outside interference happens all the time."

Barney's now pacing round the room frantically in an effort to not sink even a little into the quicksand floor.

Lily storms up to him. "Look, Barney, we're trying to—"

What, help him? Reach out? Get him back? Get closure?

Barney never finds out, because Lily makes to grab his arm and he doesn't get away fast enough. Or maybe he gets away too hastily. It happens too quickly and all Barney knows is that in his effort to avoid her grip, he's either fallen through her hand and into the couch, or just into the couch.

Either way, it's not pretty.

_Tick. Tick. Tick. _

Ten fifty-eight.

What the hell in caps and italics and bolded font, and underlined and highlighted multiple times with asterisks is the general reaction. Along with a few more not-nearly-as-tame swear words.

Barney freaks out.

There's really no point in hiding it anymore, but he still says, weakly, "Huh. Fancy that."

A barrage of questions stream out like water breaking a dam, all so loud and simultaneous that they become unintelligible to even Barney's trained ears.

_Tick. Tick. Tick. _

Ten fifty-nine.

The Devil's cool tone cuts through the frenzy. "One more minute."

"One more minute? One more minute till _what_?" Marshall demands.

Marshall is easily the most believing of this supernatural gig, with Lily and Ted following as his college roomies, and Robin as the most staggered one.

Tell them? _I don't even know what to tell them. _"You know," he says. "The usual stuff. Made a deal with the devil and he's come to reap his reward." It's the truth, but he makes it sound like it's a joke and a bad lie. Something the gang would normally dismiss as typical Barney, but the past minutes have been anything but, and they don't know what to believe.

Come to reap his reward. Barney's pretty sure he knows what the payoff is. He works his feet furiously against the barely-there floor. He's going to fall right through, through everything and neatly into Hell.

"Barney, I don't know what the hell's happening here, and you may not want or even can tell us, but you damn well tell us how to fix it!" That's Ted.

"You can't."

"From what I can see," Marshall tries, drawing from all his knowledge of the supernatural. "You're about to fall through the floor twelve stories up."

That sounds about right. Except for the part where I fall through the earth some more and into someplace with a lot more fire.

"And you'll never see me again."

_Tick. Tick. Tick. _

Eleven.

"Time."

The moment the Devil says it, his eyes glow bright and shining. Barney feels his gut drop for one terrifying moment, sees his friends for one exhilarating time, and falls through the floor.

It's only taking a split second, but that split second is split into fragments.

He sees hands grabbing at him. The first pair, the quickest to react, are Marshall's large hands, but Barney can't feel them. The second pair follows Marshall's quickly, and they're small in comparison; Lily's hands. The third drive the other two from hogging the space and they're Ted's hands, passing through him desperately, but Barney fancies he can feel a ghost of them through his own.

He flails his own hands around, finally hitting the violin, and though it's slightly more substantial than Ted, it doesn't hold.

The last portion of the split second is Robin responding, finally breaking out of the sheer shock. She lunges down with amazing speed and grabs at him—and he feels her, really finally feels something warm and human for real, and he doesn't fall through.

She's the anchor, pulling him up as he scrambles to rise as well, a million memories flashing through him—memories of her he's never had, odd things like flying to Canada for her, touching forbidden exhibits in the Natural History Museum together, spending Desperation Day with her instead of hitting on chicks; experiences he's never… experienced.

That feeling of a lost thread of time. The feeling that made him first speak to Lily, the feeling he got when she sang Sandcastles in the Sand at the stadium.

The Devil isn't there anymore, he notices, perhaps waiting for him in Hell. Robin pulls him up completely and he stands, kind of awkwardly, on her sandals.

"Dude, you're killing my toes."

Ted, Marshall, and Lily look at her as though she were crazy with her casual comment.

"You think that's bad? Bear with it. My suit's getting all scrunched with your nails."

And he laughs, leaning over her shoulder and feels something returning to him. He feels her laughing too, and even though she's still Robin, everything seems different. Barney feels his breath returning, blinks his eyes at the light, and notices his heart beating a little differently. But the only person who notices the violin sink slowly through the sofa is Lily, and it's never seen again.

_Tick. Tick. Tick. _

Eleven oh one.

And Barney thinks: Now what?

He hesitantly lifts his foot and touches it to the floor, his friends transfixed at his experiment. It seems to stay. He puts a little more weight on it, and then lifting off his other foot and resting it on the ground, keeping his hands on Robin all the way.

Is he free? Just like that?

He laughs again, because that can't be it. The Devil is Carl by day, and he works at MacLaren's, their haunt beneath Ted's very apartment.

He hits the couch, which hurts his hand with a definite thump.

And he says, "Now what?"

"Story time. Now."

"Where to begin?" Barney laments, sprawling across the couch at their paralysed forms, feeling an ecstasy rise in him like never before. Feelings! Emotions!

"How about from the beginning?" Robin suggests.

More emotion rush into him, as though trying to make up for lost years. He doesn't quite understand it—it's been too long. They're clearer than he remembers. Sharper. More poignant, yet less defined, and awfully familiar. It's not happiness or sadness or anxiety he feels; it's something else, something from before the deal in the graveyard, and something that rises in him as he holds Robin's gaze. Maybe a… heightened warmth of friendship? It's like something's been returned to him, something he's not been allowed to feel during the deal. Whatever it is, it's nice and it's as easy as breathing.

Barney grins and props himself upright, gesturing for them to sit at the opposite couch. They oblige, easily fitting into the long black sofa.

"Sit back, kiddos," he begins. "I'm going to tell you an incredible story."

_The End_


End file.
